Playing With Knives
by Convenient Alias
Summary: Vincent, worried about Eugene alone in the house all day, insists Eugene get a hobby. Eugene grudgingly complies. "If there was any consolation, it came in the fact that at least he was pretty sure Vincent had been expecting him to take up something fairly innocuous. He probably hadn't been expecting Eugene to buy throwing knives." Oneshot.
Apparently Vincent thought he could tell Eugene what to do.

"Eugene," he said, one Saturday afternoon. "We need to talk."

Eugene rolled his eyes and rolled his wheelchair over to the reclining chair where Vincent was sprawled out with a cigarette. What was it about this time? He had been getting Vincent plenty of nice, clean samples—more than Vincent would need in the next year were stored up already, although Vincent didn't know about all of those. He hadn't been drinking. Well, he hadn't been drinking except when Vincent was drinking too, and he didn't think even Vincent could complain about that. He thought he'd been especially industrious and polite for the past week. There was no reason for Vincent to want to "talk". And it was going to be one of those talks, he knew. He knew by the look on Vincent's face.

For an invalid, Vincent was extraordinarily good at condescension.

"What is it this time?" Eugene asked, leaning back as casually as he could manage in his wheelchair.

Vincent took a deep breath, lowered his gaze to the floor and said, "You need to get a life."

Eugene was confused. "Isn't that the point of having you around, Jerome?" When Vincent looked slightly confused he added, "You do the whole living thing and I can just kind of…" He waved at the basement around them, full of supplies for extracting genetic material with a couple bottles of whiskey and boxes of crackers scattered around as well.

"That's exactly the problem," Vincent said. "Eugene, you don't do anything."

"Rude," Eugene said with a frown.

"I mean, I appreciate all the work you do for me," Vincent said. "But that's all you do. You take blood, scrape skin cells off your body, pluck hair, and drink." He crossed his arms. "It's not healthy."

"I do other things."

"Great. What?"

"I manage the bills. I do the laundry." The laundry machines had been moved to the basement to facilitate Eugene being able to help out with that. "If you want me to go shopping, I'm sorry, but we're supposed to limit the number of people who see me. And I can't casually drive down to the department store either." They didn't have a car built to accommodate someone paralyzed from the waist down. Vincent was always the one who drove. "If you want me to do the cooking, clearly you've never tasted my cooking…"

"I've tasted it." Vincent grimaced. "Anyways, that's not what I'm talking about. Not chores. I mean, you don't do anything fun."

"Drinking is fun," Eugene said.

Vincent gave him a look.

"I'm joking," Eugene said. Half. "I do other things. I read."

"You read," Vincent said flatly.

Eugene did read. He had a medium sized collection of books in his room, some of which were even new ones he had ordered lately. He also had subscriptions to a few different magazines, mostly scientific ones for Vincent and a few ones about current events and odds and ends for himself. He nodded.

Vincent still didn't look impressed.

"Well, what do you do that's so great then, Mr. Astronaut?" Eugene said, crossing his arms.

"I interact with other people all day," Vincent said. "I do read, but I also go out with friends. Parties. Bowling. Concerts. Talking to other humans, not over the phone. Eugene, you're going to go stir crazy."

"I have plenty to keep me busy," Eugene protested. "I have to take plenty of samples for you, remember? And…do the laundry. And make calls, and do the taxes."

Vincent shook his head. "I've been thinking about this for a while. And there's only one thing to do. You're going to get a hobby."

Eugene grimaced. "What a disgusting word. Hobby. Do you think I'm five?" Or possibly seventy-five. Hobbies were for three kinds of people: the very young, the very old, and the rich and idle.

Reluctantly, Eugene admitted he might qualify as the last of these. But only just barely.

"I think you've been overworking yourself," Vincent countered. "Look at yourself. You have black circles under your eyes."

"They're still prettier than yours," Eugene said.

"You've been drawing too much blood again."

"I have not."

"Yes, you have. Drawing too much blood and scraping off too much skin. You look raw."

"So do you," Eugene said. Vincent, with his two hour long grooming process every morning, was hardly one to talk. Eugene didn't like needles enough that he relished drawing blood constantly, or the deadly dull process of taking samples, but he didn't envy Vincent his lot either. He exfoliated to add to Vincent's store of samples, while Vincent did nothing but get rid of dead cells that would accumulate again to equal levels within a day.

Vincent ignored his utterly valid protest to say, "Get yourself a hobby."

"I will not."

"I will throw your samples in the trash," Vincent said.

Eugene narrowed his eyes. "You wouldn't."

"I would. You have enough stored up to last another few weeks at least."

Two years, more like, Eugene pointedly did not say.

"So you're going to take a break," Vincent said. "And you're going to get a hobby. And if I find any new samples in the freezer before you've found one, they will be going in the bin."

He stood up.

"Oh, come on," Eugene said. "This is unreasonable."

Vincent walked towards the stairs. Retreating to a place Eugene couldn't follow. Real mature.

"I'm not getting a hobby," Eugene said.

Vincent was already disappearing onto the main floor.

Eugene scowled and yelled after him, "Fine." He could be like that for all Eugene carried. Nothing was going to force Eugene to get a hobby.

/…/…/

Four days later, Eugene was bored.

He hadn't done any blood drawing or exfoliating in the past three days. Partly because he knew Vincent was serious—he would, in fact, throw out any samples Eugene gathered, and Eugene refused to waste his time like that. Partly also because apparently the idiot thought Eugene couldn't deal without gathering samples, and Eugene was determined to prove him wrong.

Only apparently he was proving him right instead.

He had worked on bills and taxes and done the laundry even though there wasn't all that much to do, and reread one of his favorite books and the most recent edition of National Geographic. But it had been four days, and Eugene was bored.

He didn't want to read. He didn't want to talk on the phone with idiots or work on the accounting in illegible cursive. And if he got drunk, Vincent would take it as a sign that he was right, as nice as that would be.

Doing nothing made him itch. Exfoliating was a useful remedy for it that way. It was both a physical action and physical sensation, and while not exactly pleasant it was very distracting and always felt productive at the time.

He leaned back in his wheelchair (generally he stayed in his wheelchair when Vincent wasn't around to help him in and out of it, as was most convenient) and closed his eyes. What did he used to do when he was bored? When had things ended up like this?

Before he got himself hit by a car, he remembered, he hadn't really been all that good at avoiding boredom and escaping his own racing thoughts. Drinking had helped. Sometimes he had even drunk in company, although most often alone in his own room, shunning anyone who would see him in such a state and realize just how imperfect he was.

And before that, before the end of the Olympics had left him grim and tired, back when he had still tried to ignore the pressing of boredom, expectations, loneliness and his own fallacies…Back when he had still thought he could get a gold medal for swimming in the Olympics and prove that he could succeed, that he could be the best, that he could live up to what his parents and friends expected, that he could still be the golden boy, worthy of his own genes…

Even then, when he had thought winning the Olympics would solve everything, he had still often needed to get out of his own head. Back then, though, it had been simple. What else would he do but swim?

He would head down to the gym where he had a membership (and the gym owner was pleased to have such a great athlete attend his gym, even proud), change into a bathing suit and stay in the pool for hours on end, doing laps up and down the length of the pool, slow and steady, over and over again. He didn't need to do anything fancy; often he wouldn't even do more than one kind of stroke. But the motions would calm him and work off the energy he had built up, and by the time he climbed out he would be exhausted and hungry but the world would somehow seem a better place.

After the Olympics, it had no longer been so effective. While he was in the water things would seem better but every time he climbed out he would feel a pang of guilt, a whisper in the back of his mind reminding him that he wasn't good enough. Sometimes his laps would become frenzied and sometimes he would find himself lethargic, unmotivated to do more than the dead man's float.

At some point, alcohol had become a more effective way to seek oblivion. And then, when that wasn't enough, he had thought perhaps a more permanent solution would be best…

Sitting up in his wheelchair, he shook off the memories. He couldn't go swimming now. Even without his paralyzed legs (and he imagined he would struggle to do more than float or a very basic stroke with only his arms) there was the issue of his identity. If he got a membership to a gym with a pool, he would have to use his own name, and word of his paralysis would be sure to get out sooner or later.

Besides, Vincent had told him to take up a hobby. Swimming hadn't been a hobby. It had been his life.

/…/…/

By the end of the week, Vincent still didn't appear any closer to relenting on the subject of a hobby. Eugene, being the patient and yielding man he was (and also bored out of his mind) decided at last that perhaps he might as well give it a try. Just to humor Vincent, of course. He could give it up after a couple weeks when Vincent was satisfied and go back to exfoliating and drawing blood. Lately his skin had been actually growing back with no disturbance, and after the past few months of gathering samples constantly it was just odd.

Hobbies. Eugene had never really bothered with hobbies. Call him a man with a one track mind, but swimming had been it for him. No time for anything else.

Honestly, other than stamp collecting and fishing, he had no idea what they were.

Putting away his pride, he asked Vincent that evening after dinner, "What did you mean by hobbies?"

Vincent looked surprised by the change of subject—he had been in the middle of describing his day and Eugene never interrupted, never really having anything to add to the subject except occasionally a few words of advice or a question. He took it with grace, however, and said, "Something that you can do comfortably at home, for fun. Something apart from, you know. Business." He shrugged. "I mean, taking care of me can't be your whole life."

It could. But Eugene didn't make that argument. Letting a plume of cigarette smoke out of his mouth, he said, "I don't want to collect coins."

"No one said you had to."

"Well, what's a hobby?" he said peevishly. "People like you and I don't have hobbies. We have passions."

Vincent opened his mouth, then frowned and was silent. Clearly he knew Eugene was right but wasn't willing to admit it. Finally, after puffing on his own cigarette for a few minutes, he said, "Perhaps you need to find a new passion."

Eugene didn't say, "You are my new passion" because even if it was true, it sounded wrong. And although Vincent would understand (somehow he always understood, Eugene knew, even when he didn't want to be understood) Eugene knew it wouldn't be enough for him. Vincent didn't want Eugene to be the pathetic parasite he was. He might understand that Eugene was too weak to find a new passion for himself and loved to hear Vincent talk about the stars, but he would still want Eugene to find some stars of his own.

Instead, he said, "Jerome, passion isn't something you find lying like a penny on the street. I'm not going to be able to produce one on demand."

"Well then, you'll just have to find an amusement for now," Vincent said. Stubborn idiot. "It turns out we have even more genetic samples lying around than I thought. I can wait as long as it takes." He took another long drag on his cigarette, smiling. Smirking at Eugene's misery. The jerk.

Eugene wheeled himself off to his bedroom and got out a notebook to brainstorm. A hobby. He needed a convincing hobby or Vincent was going to continue this idiocy indefinitely. When he set his mind to it, he could be a serious nuisance. With a sigh, Eugene brought out his pencil and began to list ideas for hobbies that could be enjoyed within the house (more like a mansion, honestly—Jerome Morrow was not a poor man whichever version you looked at) and without any expenses too great to justify as measures to pacify Vincent.

Passions. Vincent would probably appreciate some sort of poetic hobby. Painting? Writing poetry? With a sardonic smile, Eugene added origami, embroidery and flower arrangement to the list. The sad thing was Vincent would probably go for any of them if Eugene seemed into them enough.

Out of all of them, only painting was remotely acceptable. Eugene had quite enjoyed art classes in high school. But still. When he thought about sitting in the basement with a canvas and paints for hours on end, trying to create some sort of image out of a white plane, all he could think about was the itch on his skin. Heck, white was a good enough color for a canvas, wasn't it? He couldn't think of anything he'd rather put onto it. Creativity had never been his forte; exactitude was more his speed. Exactitude and repetition, repeating something over and over again, each lap a little more efficient, each repetition bringing him a little closer to perfection.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The itch was only growing stronger. But he couldn't swim. Not ever again, maybe, or at least not just now. A substitute.

He let his imagination wander one way and another. Something physical would be good. Perhaps something a little violent even. He didn't need intellectual stimulation, more something to stop himself from thinking. As for the violence, if he didn't find something to take his anger out on soon, he would probably end up poisoning Vincent's food one of these days from sheer frustration.

/…/…/

The set arrived in the mail a week later. It had taken him a while to decide on an option but he had paid for fast shipping, and gotten what he asked for. Vincent brought it in from the post office (they had a box there instead of having mail delivered to the mansion, where the postman might see Eugene) and asked if it was for him or Eugene. After all, the name on it was Jerome Eugene Morrow, and while that generally meant Vincent these days it could technically mean either. And he didn't remember ordering it.

Eugene snatched it from Vincent's hands and said, "It's mine." He had been bored all week, though less so in the last couple days, when he had started rearranging one of the emptier rooms in the basement to suit his purposes.

Vincent eyed the package. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"Are you going to open it?"

"Yes," Eugene said, and he wheeled away from their common area, package in hand. Vincent watched him go but did not follow. He respected Eugene's privacy most of the time.

Eugene unwrapped the package slowly, half regretting his purchase. He had done his research carefully—he didn't regret the brand or the expense. He only regretted that sooner or later Vincent was going to find out what exactly it was, and at that point it would become obvious that his scheme of getting Eugene a hobby had at least partially succeeded. Eugene had given up. He wouldn't necessarily enjoy this, but he would at least give it a try.

If there was any consolation, it came in the fact that at least he was pretty sure Vincent had been expecting him to take up something fairly innocuous.

He probably hadn't been expecting Eugene to buy throwing knives.

It was a kit of twelve. No particular reason that Eugene could see for that number except that things always came in dozens—they were probably supposed to be lucky. Maybe he'd be lucky enough not to accidentally gouge an eye out with any of them. Anyway, it was good that there were a lot. He'd set up a nice room with targets made with layers of cardboard (and hadn't those taken time to put up) but he couldn't guarantee none of his knives would go skittering under the heater, and honestly he was not that inclined to go groping underneath it. From the wheelchair it would be quite a stretch.

He took out the knives one by one and laid them out on his bed. They were nice. Sharp, polished. They would bite into cardboard for certain. Probably they would end up scratching up the floor of the room he had prepared and even the walls when he inevitably missed. If Vincent complained, though, Eugene had an answer for all his complaints—the house belonged to Jerome Eugene Morrow, which was technically both of them, but the basement belonged to Eugene.

/…/…/

He tried out the throwing knives the next day, when Vincent had gone to work and the house was empty. No one to come down and check on him if they heard strange noises of clanging in the basement. With an air of anticipation (for the first time in a week he actually had something to do) he wheeled himself to the room he had set up with his set of knives.

It was a room about twice as big as his bedroom, with targets set up on the far wall. He had constructed them out of the remains of various cardboard boxes and packing material, left lying around from shipments of such things as hair dye, clothes, and (to Vincent's displeasure, of course) expensive wines. They had red circles drawn on them rather optimistically, as Eugene suspected it would be a while before he would be able to stick a knife in them at all. He was, genetically, a good athlete, but this required motor skills he had not developed yet. Not an issue. He was sure he would be good in time. Very good. Just like he was at everything he set his hand to, though never quite good enough.

He positioned himself three meters away from the target closest to the center of the far wall. That, according to the instructions that had come with the knives, was the correct initial distance for trying to get a knife to stick in something, since the knife would naturally rotate in the air and it was necessary to have it hit the target with the tip, not the handle. He would have to adjust after he had figured out what distance was best for him, but this was supposed to be good for a start.

He selected a knife from the box, which he had positioned in his lap. Slowly, methodically, he drew his arm back over his shoulder, over his head, and in slow motion tested out the movement he was supposed to make in order to throw it. He grasped the knife by the hilt, although the instructions said that advanced throwers might even hold it by the blade—certainly he was nowhere near that point, and he suspected he might end up cutting himself by accident.

The motion was not all that complicated. Time to give it a try, he supposed. With a sigh, he drew the knife back over his shoulder again and brought his arm forward, this time fast, releasing the knife at the moment when his hand was pointing at the center target and allowing his arm to follow through with the motion down to his side.

The knife twirled out of his hand, spinning in a circle to clang against the wall a couple feet from his cardboard target, not embedding itself in the wall (the angle was off after all) but slightly scratching it. It ricocheted back towards Eugene but at an angle, and ended up landing a few feet behind him and to the left.

It had missed him by as much as it had missed the target, but its speed whizzing past still made him freeze for a moment. Okay. He'd known he might have to dodge ricochets. Time to get his head in the game.

He rolled his wheelchair back a little further, hoping it would be a better distance from the target this time. Cocked his arm back, eyed the target. Threw. Completely missed again, and flinched when the ricochet came a bit closer than before.

Another throw, and another, and another. Soon he had run out of knives (he hadn't thought he had tried so many times yet, but then it didn't take long to throw a knife, did it?) and had to gather them all up off the floor, which from the wheelchair was torture. All the bending. Perhaps he ought to call it quits and go back to his room and…

…Do what? Reread _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ for the seventieth time?

Cursing Vincent, he readjusted his grip on the first knife out of the dozen and took aim.

After a while, when he had figured out the correct distance and gotten over jumping at the clanging when the knives hit the wall and their ricochet back—and actually learned how to dodge fast enough to miss the few knives that almost did hit him, leaning away or scooting the wheelchair back—it became somewhat mindless. He got the motion down fast enough, even if his aim was still off, and his sense of timing was not bad, nor was his hand-eye coordination. It was not as satisfying as he had imagined to pretend the center of the target was Vincent's head, because he never actually managed to hit it and he had to imagine Vincent smirking condescendingly every time he missed. So much for getting out his frustration. Heck, he was barely even managing to make dents and scratches in the wall.

It was satisfying in one way though. He loved the moment of releasing the knife, watching it spiral through the air, effortlessly flying. His own arm ended up beside his chair after the follow through, but a part of him felt like he flew with the knife, which before throwing it was something of an extension of his body. He hadn't felt weightless since a few days prior to the accident (if that was what he was calling it these days), the last time he had gone swimming.

The only annoying thing was that he kept on having to pick all the knives up off the floor, and it was beginning to hurt his back. He could have chosen a hobby less frustrating, perhaps. But then, this wasn't supposed to be easy. It was supposed to keep him busy, and it managed that well enough.

It had already kept him busy for two hours, and his arm was a bit tired.

Resigning himself to taking a break (which really wasn't his style but he had gotten out of shape since losing the use of his legs and his athletic ambitions in one stroke)he raised his arm one more time to throw the last of his dozen knives, the weight of it now comfortable in his hand, the curves of its shape familiar. He brought his arm forward and threw.

The knife lodged in the target.

Well that was different.

There were eleven throwing knives scattered around the floor and Eugene was going to have to pick them all up before taking his break, but first he wheeled over to the target and carefully removed the one knife that had stuck, remembering to wiggle it vertically as he pulled it out rather than horizontally. The target was left with a single mark, the only knife to hit it and stick while the wallpaper was scratched to pieces. Eugene gently touched the cardboard. Satisfying, he supposed.

He hadn't expected to get it right so fast.

/…/…/

He waited a few days before showing Vincent. Partly because he kind of worried about one of the knives ricocheting and hitting Vincent, who might not be able to dodge on time. Partly because he wanted to show Vincent once he could do it well, when he wasn't making so many mistakes, to show off. He had never been able to show Vincent how he could swim, and he wondered if Vincent really had gotten it through his head that Eugene was an Olympic level athlete. And then of course there was the fact that showing Vincent his new "hobby" was admitting that Vincent was right—he did need something more interesting to do with his time.

Ultimately he relented and showed Vincent for three reasons.

First, Vincent was clearly curious. A few times Eugene had been practicing while he was home and while he hadn't entered the room he had asked Eugene at dinner what exactly all the noise was. When Eugene had told him about the throwing knives, he had asked, actually asked, if he might see. Eugene had frowned and said he would have to think about it. Odd because Vincent rarely asked anything about Eugene. Generally they both just accepted that Eugene was the one who faded into the background, who lived through hearing about Vincent's life but did little of his own, had little of his own worth hearing about. Having Vincent ask about him was odd. Not exactly unpleasant, either.

Second, Eugene was actually fairly good by now. His knives didn't always lodge, and they didn't always hit the target. But they nearly always did, and he was even beginning to get them to hit closer to the center of the target rather than the outer edge. So Eugene would probably look at least a bit impressive (even if knife throwing came nowhere near being an astronaut in accomplishments) and there was a lower chance of accidentally stabbing Vincent in the gut with a ricochet.

Third, Vincent still refused to accept Eugene collecting any more samples, which at this point was getting ridiculous.

So the next day, when Vincent came home in a fairly good mood because apparently he had talked to some woman named Irene who usually somewhat ignored him, Eugene waited until after dinner and then brought him into what he was now calling "the knife room".

Vincent was hesitant at first. He stepped into the room as if he expected there to already be knives flying through it, even though Eugene wheeled in behind him and still had said knives in their box. He frowned at the utterly destroyed wallpaper (Eugene had stopped hitting it quite as much after the first two days, but sometimes threw his knife into the wall instead of the targets just for fun) and examined the targets close up, bringing his face within an inch of some of the gouges but not touching them. Eugene gave him permission to touch—it wasn't like Vincent's fingers could damage the cardboard beyond what the knives had already done—but he shook his head.

"Do you want to see me throw?" Eugene said.

Vincent nodded. He walked over to stand next to Eugene, and Eugene said, "Be warned. Sometimes they ricochet."

"I'll be careful," Vincent said. He stepped even closer to Eugene's wheelchair. Eugene rolled his eyes and pulled out the first knife. He held it over his lap for a minute, letting his hand remember its weight. He hadn't thrown knives for long today, reading a magazine that had come in the mail instead of training without ceasing. In front of Vincent, though, he knew he wouldn't mess up. He wanted this to be perfect.

"Well, here I go."

The first knife lodged itself in the edge of the target. Eugene glanced up to see Vincent watching him intently as he reached for the second knife. He smiled as he threw. This one came a little closer to the center.

Vincent's eyes were now fixed on the target, and never once left it as Eugene rapidly threw the other ten knives. They all stuck (he knew the right distance now, no more ricochets to scare Vincent off) but two ended up embedded in the wall near the target rather than on the target itself.

One of those two was the last one he threw. With a sigh, he said, "I suppose I won't be winning any competitions."

Vincent laughed. "Do you want me to help you get them out?" he said. But he was already walking over to the target and reaching for the knives. Eugene shrugged—it was easy enough to pick up the knives as long as they stuck, but as long as Vincent wiggled them vertically and didn't damage either the target or the knives, he didn't really care. And Vincent seemed to be doing okay.

He demonstrated another round of throwing when Vincent reclaimed his position at his side, and this time all the knives embedded themselves in the target. He had redeemed himself.

Vincent insisted on helping take out the knives again, and this time when he handed them to Eugene, Eugene pressed one of them back into his hand. He looked at it in confusion.

"Go on. Give it a try," Eugene said.

Vincent laughed. "I wouldn't even know how to hold it."

"Oh, come on." Eugene took Vincent's hand and wrapped it around the hilt of the knife in the correct position. "Easy enough."

"Sure."

"Now throw."

With a deep breath, Vincent drew his arm back over his head and did just that.

The knife bounced against the wall, having hit by the handle, and came ricocheting back at them, landing on the other side of Eugene after missing him by about a foot.

Vincent, who had jerked Eugene's wheelchair to the side when he saw it coming, even though Eugene could tell it wasn't too near, now released both the wheelchair and his breath. "Sorry," he said.

Eugene shrugged. "It's scary the first time you do it." He didn't appreciate having his wheelchair manhandled like that but he could deal with it.

"I almost impaled you!" Vincent said.

Eugene laughed. "I've come closer to impaling myself. Here." He pressed another knife, by the hilt of course, into Vincent's hand. "Give it another go."

Vincent shook his head. Eugene gave his wrist a squeeze and nodded encouragingly.

Vincent sighed. "Fine."

With encouragement from Eugene, he threw a solid dozen, all of which ricocheted, making him wince. He missed by more than Eugene had initially, and he freaked out a bit more too, but honestly Eugene thought he was doing pretty well. After he had gathered the dozen back up, though, he didn't want to try again.

"Seriously," Vincent said. "I'm going to end up hitting one of us."

"You'll be fine. Mine originally bounced off too."

Vincent shrugged. "It's not really my thing. I'm not sure I have an eye for it."

"You're Jerome Morrow. Of course you have an eye for it."

"Eugene, your logic doesn't work."

"You're wearing contacts so you still have my eyes."

"You're ridiculous," Vincent said. But he was grinning. "Fine, I'll give it another go."

Eugene managed to keep him at it for another hour, although Vincent needed to take occasional breaks. It was fun, he supposed. He and Vincent really didn't do all that much together, when he thought about it. They worked on equipping Vincent for his job, ate meals, got drunk and once in a while even played chess or cards (when they were really and truly bored) but they never did anything terribly fun. It was nice. He liked coaching Vincent on what he was doing wrong—entirely apart from his aim, he didn't move his arm right and his distance was off—and demonstrating how to do it right. Vincent took his advice seriously, although he didn't manage to follow it. It was nice.

Over the next few days he returned to gathering samples for Vincent, who had capitulated and said Eugene seemed to be doing fine, but he still continued to practice with the knives. Now he never missed the target anymore. He didn't always hit the center, but he never missed the target unless it was on purpose. He needed to replace the cardboard, so gouged that chunks were sprinkled on the floor in front of it and the knives could barely stick in the mutilated area near the center anymore. But there was still plenty of cardboard lying around the house and it was no particular bother.

Vincent did agree to practice throwing knives with him once or twice, but he was still terrible. Eugene kept on telling him he would improve, but it was beginning to look like a doubtful prospect. Eugene himself had begun to work on throwing knives while holding them by the blade. It required a different distance from the target in order to stick, but he found it did indeed make for a quicker draw, and it was a novelty. He also began to throw the knives at angles, to the side as well as straight in front of him.

Anything for a challenge.

Perhaps the fact that he now held the knives by the blade creeped Vincent out. He flinched sometimes when Eugene threw them, but he was beginning to adjust to the fact that Eugene's knives stuck to the target, went where he wanted them to. They weren't going to ricochet and hit Vincent in the face.

One day the next week, when Vincent had given up on throwing knives and was now sitting in a corner of the knife room reading a book while Eugene pulled his knives out of the target, Vincent looked up from his book for a moment and said, "Did you really first start doing this a week ago?"

Eugene made some mental calculations. "Yes."

Vincent whistled and returned to his reading.

"What?" Eugene said.

"Nothing," Vincent said. "Just an impressive learning curve." He awkwardly gave a thumbs up without looking away from his book.

"I put a lot of time in," Eugene said. "Hours every day. Because someone wouldn't let me do my actual work."

Vincent finally did look up now, if only to roll his eyes. "Sure. Lots of work. Over the course of a week."

"It's not like I'm not still learning," Eugene insisted. "Besides, I'm only using basic knives. You can also use knives of different weights, knives with two blades, throwing needles, throwing stars…" He trailed off. "They do cost money, but not all that much. I've already ordered the needles. They seemed the most different."

"Cool," Vincent said.

"I didn't learn that quickly," Eugene said. "My knives were constantly missing and ricocheting too. For a while."

Vincent nodded but it was plain Eugene had lost his attention.

/…/…/

Needle throwing was harder than knife throwing, and less satisfying because the needles were lighter. It took Eugene another week to master it, while he improved his accuracy with the knives. He could hit any target he set up in the room with any of his knives (and he had gotten a few heavier knives in the mail) and any of the needles. Any point on the target, even the smallest line drawn in pen. Easy.

He didn't tell Vincent about the achievement. Vincent didn't ask. He had stopped visiting the knife room, content that Eugene was amusing himself. Perhaps he would have been impressed that Eugene could now throw the knives while barely looking, eyes half closed, far too familiar with the targets, with the layout of the room. Perhaps not.

Maybe Vincent was right and it was odd, the way Eugene had grown accustomed to the knives so quickly. They felt like they were part of his body now, extensions of his arm. Familiar to him, now, and in their familiarity…

Boring.

It was still a workout, he supposed. More interesting than doing pushups or sit-ups to keep in shape, or lifting weights. There was a bit of a burn if he threw for long enough. And the exactitude was satisfying in a way. He tried to forget how much more interesting it had been when he had flinched at every ricochet.

One day when Vincent wasn't home yet, and wouldn't be for another hour or so, he stopped throwing his knives to rest. He was getting a bit tired, perhaps, though the slowly approaching fatigue had not yet affected his accuracy. He wanted a cool drink, but he had forgotten his water bottle. Foolish.

He wheeled out to the basement kitchen—yes, there was a separate kitchen in the basement, though after realizing that Vincent was a lot better than him at cooking Eugene had mostly stopped using it except for the refridgerator—getting himself a glass and heading towards the sink. He filled his glass with water and took a sip.

It had been a boring day. Vincent was right; his life really was very monotonous, and the knife throwing was hardly helping anymore. Get up, breakfast, wish Vincent a good day at work, exfoliate, draw blood if it was the right day for it, brush as much hair out as possible, lunch, knife throwing, knife throwing, knife throwing…

And now a glass of bland water. Eugene sighed. He poured the rest of the water out in the sink and headed to the refrigerator. If nothing else was going to spice up his day, it would have to be vodka. He had no particular desire to continue throwing knives right now anyway. Vincent would get annoyed at him for drinking so early in the day, but so what? Vincent was a navigator at Gattaca. Vincent didn't have to spend all day in this dull, sterile basement, chipping off skin and making new scratches in the walls of the knife room.

The vodka burned going down, but that was familiar too, as was the sensation, two glasses later, of his mind beginning to loosen up, perhaps fizzle a bit at the edges. He sighed. Perhaps that was what was wrong with him—he hadn't had a good drink in days, only a small amount of wine at dinner with Vincent. Sometimes he forgot. Drinking was fun.

He took the bottle of vodka back with him to the knife room and picked up the knives. They looked a bit more amusing now that he had had a little to drink. He tossed one straight up and caught it coming down. Tossed it, caught it. Repeat. Repeat. He caught it by the blade and sent it hurtling towards the target.

It hit dead center.

He threw again, and again, and again, and again, and again, until he had run out of knives. They hadn't all hit dead center, but only because he had been aiming at different places—didn't want to get the bull's-eye too crowded. They had all stuck where he wanted them to.

He took a swig of the vodka. Collected the knives.

Again.

He didn't miss. He threw all by the blade, unwilling to make it easier on himself. He didn't miss. He took two gulps of vodka this time.

Again.

He didn't miss. It felt like fate, the knowledge that no matter how little attention he paid to the throw, no matter how much alcohol he had just ingested or how little he even tried, those knives would always end up where he wanted them to. He was their god. He was perfection. He lifted the bottle of vodka and discovered it was empty. It figured.

He had collected the knives for maybe the twelfth time (fifteenth time, hundredth time, millionth time, what difference did it make?) when the door to the knife room opened and Vincent walked in.

"Hi, Eugene."

"Hello, Jerome." His voice came out breathy and he realized he was laughing, unsure when he had started. He took a deep breath and let the laughter die.

"Been throwing for a while?" Vincent said. His voice was too even, trying not to show emotion. As if Eugene couldn't already feel his judgment, hadn't felt it from the moment he walked into the room.

"Years."

Vincent picked up the bottle of vodka that Eugene had left lying on the ground next to the wall on his right. "You're drunk."

"Only a little."

"You shouldn't be throwing knives when you're drunk."

Lazily, Eugene drew his arm back and hurled another one at the center target. It hit the edge on the far left.

"Your aim is off," Vincent said.

"No," Eugene said. "I meant to do that." He sighed. "What you don't understand, Jerome, is that I am a god."

"Mhm," Vincent said. "Maybe you should put the knives down."

"It's been a dull day."

"So you needed to drink."

Eugene glared at Vincent. "Stop acting like I'm an alcoholic. I'm perfectly capable of making my own choices. I was bored."

"Put the knives down," Vincent repeated. "We can talk about this outside."

Eugene rolled his eyes, lifted a knife and hurled it at the wall to his right. It lodged two inches to the left of Vincent's head.

Vincent froze. Then, shaking himself, he stalked over to Eugene and grabbed his hand, cocked to throw another knife. "Eugene."

"Don't get hissy. I meant to miss." The knife had hit the exact notch in the wall Eugene had been aiming for.

"Drop the knife."

"Fine." Eugene let the knife fall with a clatter to the ground and leaned back in his chair while Vincent grabbed the rest of the knives off his lap. Vincent always overreacted, but this had gotten boring anyway. There was no point in starting a fight.

"We need to talk."

"Hm. No."

"You can't be throwing knives while drunk!"

"I think the point is that I can," Eugene said. But then, Vincent never did get the point. Eugene was willing to explain it to him. "I could do it drunk, blind, probably in my sleep. It's been only two weeks. Why is everything so easy?"

Vincent had put the knives back in their box. "Fine. We can talk later."

He never listened.

/…/…/

They did, in fact, talk later.

Eugene said, the next morning, "I think I'm done with throwing knives."

"I think that's a good idea," Vincent said. "Maybe something less dangerous."

Eugene laughed. "Come on. They weren't dangerous. Just boring."

"You threw a knife at my head."

Eugene ignored him. "They aren't satisfying anymore. They're just dull."

At least collecting samples gave him some sort of satisfaction—he knew it helped Vincent. And he had gotten some marginal level of satisfaction from throwing knives initially, when his skills had slowly improved. Satisfaction, he thought, came from progress, came from getting better, came from your effort meaning something at the end of the day. It was a rare bird. He felt it regularly in helping Vincent, but before the "accident" it had been rather lacking from his life.

He was meant to be an athlete, genetically, not take up some intellectual job like Vincent was trying for now, whatever Gattaca might think. Physical activity, what his body was meant for, should have been satisfying. It hadn't been, except for swimming. Sometimes he wondered why swimming used to be different, used to fill in his gaps and give him purpose and thrill him with its challenge. Sometimes he wondered why that had changed.

Pointless ponderings. The practical fact was, throwing knives was not thrilling. There was no point in continuing anymore.

"Whatever you say," Vincent said with his typical awkward laugh. "As long as you don't try to murder me again, I'm fine."

"Seriously. It came nowhere near you."

"It came within an inch."

"It was never going to hit."

"We'll agree to disagree," Vincent said. He cleared his throat. "So what are you going to do now?"

"Collect samples. Pay bills. Do the laundry. If you'd let me cook…"

"You know what I mean. Just because knife throwing doesn't do it for you doesn't mean nothing will. A new hobby," Vincent said firmly. "I'm sure there's something."

Eugene rolled his eyes. "Perhaps I'll take up knitting."

Vincent raised an eyebrow.

"Are you judging me for how I choose to spend my time?" Eugene said haughtily. "At the very least, you can't say it's dangerous."

"No, no. Whatever you want," Vincent said. "Maybe you can make me a hat."

Vincent was an idiot. Still, perhaps it was best to continue trying to find some sort of pastime that would keep him distracted for a while. Knitting would do for a while—it looked hard enough and it would be a good way to mess with Vincent. And perhaps one day he would be able to swim again, even if he would not be able to do it so well without his legs. Someday he would get up the courage to make Vincent get a gym membership somewhere they didn't check your identity genetically, somewhere he could swim with no one knowing who he was. And perhaps he would be able to recover the peace and satisfaction he knew he had once felt.

/.../.../

/.../.../

AN: So this story has a bit of a backstory. Having watched Gattaca with a few friends, we were discussing fanfiction ideas. My girl friends suggested a fic where Eugene learned how to knit; my guy friend looked skeptical. I said, "Fine, what would you rather have a fanfic about?"

He said, "Eugene throwing knives."

I'm pretty sure he meant it as a joke. Like 99% sure. Oh well though. You should be careful what you wish for.

Anyways, reviews are always appreciated and happy writing!


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